The Theatre of D.H. Lawrence: Dramatic Modernist and Theatrical Innovator

Description

This is the first major book-length study for four decades to examine the plays written by D. H. Lawrence, and the first ever book to give an in-depth analysis of Lawrence’s interaction with the theatre industry during the early twentieth century. It connects and examines his performance texts, and explores his reaction to a wide-range of theatre (from the sensation dramas of working-class Eastwood to the ritual performances of the Pueblo people) in order to explain Lawrence’s contribution to modern drama. F. R. Leavis influentially labelled the writer ‘D. H. Lawrence: Novelist’. But this book foregrounds Lawrence’s career as a playwright, exploring unfamiliar contexts and manuscripts, and drawing particular attention to his three most successful works: The Widowing of Mrs Holroyd, The Daughter-in-Law, and A Collier’s Friday Night. It examines how Lawrence’s novels are suffused with theatrical thinking, revealing how Lawrence’s fictions – from his first published work to the last story that he wrote before his death – continually take inspiration from the playhouse. The book also argues that, although Lawrence has sometimes been dismissed as a restrictively naturalistic stage writer, his overall oeuvre shows a consistent concern with theatrical experiment, and manifests affinities with the dramatic thinking of modernist figures including Brecht, Artaud, and Joyce. In a final section, the book includes contributions from influential theatre-makers who have taken their own cue from Lawrence’s work, and who have created original work that consciously follows Lawrence in making working-class life central to the public forum of the theatre stage. Cover page Halftitle page Series page Title page Copyright page Dedication Epigraph CONTENTS FOREWORD ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS OVERVIEW INTRODUCTION THE SIGNIFICANCE OF LAWRENCE’S PLAYS: SHIFTS IN REPUTATION FROM 1930 TO 2014 The dead playwright Mid-century reassessments Influence on playwrights Current status CHAPTER 1 WRITING LAWRENCE’S PLAYS: BECOMING A DRAMATIST, 1885 TO 1910 Eastwood Shakespeare Arthur and Ernest Sarah Bernhardt Croydon and Synge Davidson Road School W.B. Yeats CHAPTER 2 THE FRUSTRATION OF STAGING: DRAMATIC STRUGGLES, 1911 TO 1930 Granville Barker Edward Garnett Regional repertory theatre Frieda The Stage Society Esmé Percy Ireland Farjeon and Goldring Galsworthy Another failure Nottingham CHAPTER 3 THE DRAMA OF LAWRENCE’S FICTION: PLAYWRIGHT AS NOVELIST From stage to page Christmas G.B. Shaw Popular theatricals Esther Andrews Portable theatre and cinema Towards a theatre of cruelty Lawrence’s final story CHAPTER 4 LAWRENCE’S THEATRICAL DEVELOPMENT: REALIST AND EXPERIMENTALIST CROSSCURRENTS Lawrence the realist? Ibsen and Strindberg Hauptmann Maeterlinck Italy and Germany Puebloan ritual Bertolt Brecht The final play Joycean parallels CHAPTER 5 A DIRECTOR’S PERSPECTIVE: PETER GILL, IN CONVERSATION WITH JAMES MORAN CHAPTER 6 A PLAYWRIGHT’S PERSPECTIVE CHAPTER 7 A SCREENWRITER’S PERSPECTIVE CHAPTER 8 AN INTERCULTURAL PERSPECTIVE CONCLUSION LAWRENCE’S THEATRE: A TIMELINE NOTES BIBLIOGRAPHY INDEX